Derek Mears

By Robert Falconer – CinemaSpy.com

We already know that Adrien Brody and Topher Grace recently joined the cast of Robert Rodriguez’s Predators, rounding out an ensemble that includes Alice Braga as a tough female killer, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali as a man not afraid of death, Walt Goggins as a loose cannon, and UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov as an ex-Russian special ops agent. Oh, yeah, and Danny Trejo as Cuchillo, a Mexican drug cartel enforcer.

Over the weekend, actor Derek Mears (Jason Voorhees from the rebooted Friday the 13th feature) confirmed to DreadCentral that he has been cast as well. “People were talking for a couple of weeks, but I wasn’t able to confirm,” he said. “I kept assuring the filmmakers that I was not the leak. Now it’s out there, but I’m still not saying who I play.”

In the film, the group are all kidnapped by the Predators and taken to the creatures’ home world to be hunted for sport. Eventually, the human gang comes across an American, who has been hiding from the Predators for years and explains to the new “prey” what’s going on. It’s widely expected that this particular role is being reserved for Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that it is the role he played in the original Predator film, that of “Dutch”.
Predators is directed by Nimrod Antal (Vacancy) and scheduled to arrive in theaters on July 7, 2010.

Amazon Specials!

By Michael Fleming– Variety.com

Twisted Pictures is becoming the house of multiple sharp objects. The makers of the “Saw” series are closing a deal to take over the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise, putting the villains Leatherface and Jigsaw under one roof.

Sources said the producer/financier is in talks to partner in the films with Lionsgate, which has distributed all the pics in the highly profitable “Saw” series, including the Oct. 23 release of “Saw VI.”

The plan is to contemporize the storyline for a 3D film that would be scripted by Stephen Susco (“The Grudge”). Carl Mazzocone, Mark Burg and Oren Koules will be the producers.

The series had been launched at New Line with a remake and a prequel produced by Platinum Dunes, the genre company run by Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form.

Deals had been made on a per-pic basis with “Chainsaw” rights-holders Bob Kuhn and Kim Henkel, the latter of whom wrote the original 1974 pic with director Tobe Hooper. Talks fell apart with Platinum Dunes. The Twisted Pictures deal is for multiple films, sources said.

The franchise is bloody big business: The 2003 remake cost $9.5 million and grossed $110 million worldwide. The 2006 prequel didn’t do as well but still grossed $55 million on a $13 million budget.

The Platinum Dunes team, which just made a first-look deal at Paramount, still is aligned with a pair of iconic psycho murderers: After reintroducing Jason Voorhees in 2009′s “Friday the 13th,” they are relaunching Freddy Krueger (played by Jackie Earle Haley) in a new “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”

Amazon Specials!

By Nix – BeyondHollywood.com

Sony Screen Gems has released the official cast list and plot synopsis for the upcoming “Resident Evil: Afterlife” (via Dread Central), the fourth entry in the undead franchise, and guess what? It’ll star Alice (Milla Jovovich) and have zombies in it.

In a world ravaged by a virus infection, turning its victims into the Undead, Alice continues on her journey to find survivors and lead them to safety. Her deadly battle with the Umbrella Corporation reaches new heights, but Alice gets some unexpected help from an old friend. A new lead that promises a safe haven from the Undead leads them to Los Angeles, but when they arrive the city is overrun by thousands of Undead and Alice and her comrades are about to step into a deadly trap.

Wentworth Miller of “Prison Break” fame, Norman Yeung and Kacey Barnfield will be joining returning castmembers Jovovich, Ali Larter, and Spencer Locke. Miller will play Chris Redfield, the brother of Larter’s Claire character, and a member of the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team. Shawn Roberts will play Albert Wesker, a rogue company man with powers that rival Alice’s.

Paul W.S. Anderson returns to direct the first 3D installment in the franchise, which is set for a August 27, 2010 release.

Milla Jovovich

Ali Larter

Amazon Specials!

BY TOM BELL – Kennebec Journal

PORTLAND — Bigfoot is coming to Congress Street.

Loren Coleman, an expert on creatures that exist at least in the imagination, but have yet to be documented by scientists, is about to open the International Cryptozoology Museum, the only one of its kind in the world.

Coleman will rent a U-Haul van and move his 8-foot-tall, 400-pound Bigfoot sculpture, which now stands on the front porch of his home on Massachusetts Avenue in Portland, to a storefront window at 661 Congress St.

The museum, opening on Nov. 1, will feature fake artifacts, such as full-body mounted jackalopes and “cryptids,” creatures whose existence has been suggested but lacks scientific support.

Coleman owns a model of the Loch Ness monster that was made from descriptions of those who claim to have seen the creature, and he says he has a foot cast and hair sample from the Abominable Snowman, both found during a 1959 expedition in the Himalayas.

Loren Coleman and Bigfoot

One of the most curious artifacts will be Coleman himself.

Coleman is considered a leading expert in the field of cryptozoology, which refers to the search for animals that are considered legendary or otherwise nonexistent by mainstream biologists.

Three years ago, when an ugly creature that became known as the “Maine Mutant” was found dead in Turner, it was Coleman who rushed to the scene and announced to the world that the creature was just a dog, which DNA results later confirmed.

Coleman has written 17 books on cryptozoology and has been an on- and off-camera consultant to NBC-TV’s “Unsolved Mysteries,” A&E’s “Ancient Mysteries” and the History Channel’s “In Search of History.”

For the past six years, he has housed his International Cryptozoology Museum in his home, open to the public by appointment.

Coleman, 62, said he has been getting e-mails from cryptozoology fans all across the country, as well as in Europe and Asia.

“Portland is going to be the epicenter of the world of cryptozoology now,” he said.

The museum will open in what is becoming Portland’s funky business district.

Strange Maine, at 578 Congress St., is a performance space and shop that caters to “freaks” and “weirdos,” according to its own Web site.

The Fun Box Monster Emporium, at 696 Congress St., sells stuff such as vintage Snork figures, kung fu posters and Shogun Warriors toys.

Coleman’s museum will be in the rear of a new bookstore called the Green Hand, which will specialize in supernatural fiction, horror fiction and weird fiction.

The stretch of Congress Street between Park and State streets has been like a Devil’s Triangle for new ventures because so many have come and gone over the years, said Nancy Grayson, owner of Cunningham Books at 188 State St.

She said she hopes the Green Hand and the International Cryptozoology Museum will change the pattern.

“Nothing has worked in those two blocks,” she said. “If they can get something going that is positive, that is great.”

Mike Discatio, co-owner of Joe’s Smoke Shop, said Bigfoot will feel right at home in the neighborhood.

“I’ve seen it all here,” he said. “Nothing fazes me anymore.”

Read more about Bigfoot HERE!

By Mike Lucibella – FOX News

WASHINGTON — When Woody Harrelson escapes the living dead in “Zombieland,” a new movie opening this Friday, should he head for the hills or the mall? A recently published research paper suggests that he’s probably better off hiding in the mall to save his delicious brain.

The world is full of things that move in zombie-like fashion, such as particles flowing through a turbulent fluid or the unpredictable price changes of the stock market, so physicists seek insight into this behavior by creating so called “random walking” models.

Physicist Davide Cassi at the Università di Parma in Italy looked at how long an entity hiding in a complex structure could survive if being pursued by predatory random walkers. Cassi’s paper, recently published in the journal Physical Review E, is the first to describe a general principle of a prey’s likelihood to survive over time while hiding in an irregular structure.

Though the paper itself does not specifically refer to fleeing from zombies, it describes “the survival probability of immobile targets annihilated by random walkers.” The conclusions suggest that the people trapped in a mall in “Dawn of the Dead” may be better off than the folks stuck in a farmhouse in “Night of the Living Dead.”

Cassi found that the likelihood of survival when threatened by predatory random walkers is closely related to how complex the prey’s hideout is. The more twists and turns, the safer you’ll be. In structures that are highly complex and irregular, the chances of the predator coming into contact with its target shrinks down to almost zero.

Cassi formulates a model to describe the behavior of randomly moving particles as they travel through maze-like networks. He said that his work could apply to a wide variety of situations including the distribution of information through the internet and medicine spreading through the human body.”

There are a lot of applications of these results in a lot of fields of sciences,” Cassi said. “The most amazing field of applications of these results are in biology, biochemistry and other organisms.

“So remember, when the zombies come, flee to the biggest shopping mall you can find and remember that, using zombie movies as a guide, the undead often win.

This article was provided by Inside Science News Service, which is supported by the American Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit publisher of scientific journals.

The bizarre creature features a large human-like head with the legs and body of a goat.

The Daily Telegraph

An African village is reportedly shell-shocked after the birth of a bizarre faun-like creature said to have the combined features of a man and a goat.

Bild reports the creature, which died just a few hours after birth in Lower Gweru, Zimbabwe, had a huge head and face which resembled a human, as well as goat legs and a tail.

Villagers said the end product was so scary even dogs were afraid to go close to it. They burned the corpse fearing it was an evil sign.

“This is indeed a miracle that has never been witnessed anywhere,” elder Themba Moyo said.

The goat’s owner called police after the birth.

“It’s the first time that my goat did this. I have 15 goats and it’s this goat that gave me birth to most of them. My goats often give birth to sets of twins,” he said.

 The Zimbabwe Guardian reports that Midlands Governor and Resident Minister Jason Machaya is adamant the creature is the result of a coupling between man and goat.

“This incident is very shocking. It is my first time to see such an evil thing. It is really embarrassing,” he reportedly said.

“The head belongs to a man while the body is that of a goat. This is evident that an adult human being was responsible. Evil powers caused this person to lose self control.

“We often hear cases of human beings who commit bestiality but this is the first time for such an act to produce a product with human features.”

A vet didn’t have the chance to investigate the creature, but after inspecting photos, he told Bild he believed it was a child suffering from hydrocephalus, or water on the brain.

“The condition would have accounted for the abnormally large skull and for the chin, nose, ears and other body parts having shifted during development,” he reportedly said.

Half-man, half-goat creatures like fauns and satyrs are popular in Greek and Roman mythology.

Dick Durock as Swamp Thing

By David Bentley – CoventryTelegraph.net

THE ACTOR who played the DC Comics character Swamp Thing in two films and a television series has died at the age of 72.

Dick Durock, a 6ft 5ins former Marine, passed away at his home in Oak Park, California, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, according to his official website.

Dick Durock

Durock wore a latex bodysuit and make-up to play the monster in 1982′s Swamp Thing directed by Wes Craven; its 1989 sequel The Return of Swamp Thing; and a subsequent Swamp Thing series that ran for 71 episodes from 1990 to 1993.

The actor appeared in dozens of other movies and TV series including the shows Star Trek, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Battlestar Galactica and The Incredible Hulk.

Fans had been hoping Durock would have a cameo role in the new 3D remake of Swamp Thing or at least be able to see his classic creation come to life on the big screen again.

The story tells of a scientist who is caught in a lab explosion and, doused with chemicals, falls into a swamp. He is resurrected as a humanoid mass of vegetation who – in a strong ecological theme – fights to protect the environment from various threats.

Warner Bros is considering a remake of Swamp Thing. Producer Joel Silver last month told Collider: “I’m developing a picture now that I’d like to do…I’ll hopefully do Swamp Thing, which is a movie we’ve had for a long time. We think that would be great to do in 3D.”

More recently, it was reported that producer Akiva Goldsman was linked to the project and wanted a reboot based upon the highly regarded Swamp Thing comic book stories by Watchmen writer Alan Moore.

Last year, director Guillermo del Toro expressed enthusiasm for taking on the project, telling The LA Times: “Oh, I would love to make a Swamp Thing movie. Really, Swamp Thing is one of the last Holy Grail projects that is still out there. Those stories were fantastic, with the hallucinogenic feel of that world. I don’t think anyone is tackling that one anytime soon. It is one of those Holy Grails that dates back to that same boom as Watchmen and The Killing Joke. For me it would be an honour to do it.”

But his schedule is piled high and he added: “Right now, I don’t think it’s happening. If I had enough time to tackle it. But I will be 50 when I get out of The Hobbit.”

By Eric Ditzian and Vanessa White Wolf – MTV.com

Don’t let anyone say making movies is a glamorous process. On the Wales set of the big-budget action remake “Clash of the Titans,” star Sam Worthington stood in a bulky rain slicker, his face smeared with mud, waiting to dive back into yet another scene on location in a soggy, windswept environment that won’t soon be enticing the Hollywood glitterati for getaway weekends.

Alexa Davalos plays Andromeda

Extras in grimy armor milled about, wearing sandals and carrying spears, while camels clattered by and breathtaking stone ruins loomed above on lush green hills. The day’s shoot included a grand battle scene in a crumbling, fire-pocked temple and gritty sword-to-shield combat under the unforgiving U.K. elements. It was all in the quest to transform the 1981 original — a film Worthington called “a bit soft and a bit camp” — into a contemporary, gritty saga about ancient badassery.

“Even though we shot on locations that are big and epic themselves, you put that together with cutting-edge CG, it should give an exciting ride,” Worthington told MTV News, which got the first-ever look at the “Titans” set for Friday’s (September 4) episode of “Behind the Screen.”

The film is loosely based on the Greek legend of Perseus — the “bastard son of Zeus,” Worthington explained of his character. “His family gets slaughtered, and he goes on a revenge spree.”

That spree includes butting heads with snake-haired Medusa, battling a massive sea monster and contending with the aforementioned fiery temple and sword-brandishing baddies. Liam Neeson plays Zeus, Ralph Fiennes is underworld overlord Hades and other castmembers include Liam Cunningham, Mads Mikkelsen, Nicholas Hoult and Gemma Arterton.

The production spent six weeks on the sun-drenched island of Tenerife — “Margaritas for breakfast!” Cunningham laughed — before shifting to the less sunny Wales location. The island getaway proved to be a bonding experience for the cast, even if they still didn’t agree about the quality of the first “Titans.”

“I saw the original, and I’m a big fan,” Hoult said. “I love the stop-motion.”

Izabella Miko plays Athena

Arterton also counts herself as an ardent “Titans” fangirl after countless childhood viewings with her family. Worthington, of course, found 1981′s effort, which he watched before shooting began on the remake, more than a little lacking. But that’s the reason they’re making a new “Titans.”

“It sounds like a reasonable, good idea to remake a film where it’s the same kind of story, but you actually have big increases in the capacity of what computers can do today,” Mikkelsen said.

Morena Baccarin as the Alien Anna

By Lynette Rice – Entertainment Weekly

An ABC spokeswoman confirmed exclusively to EW that V, the network’s much anticipated reboot of the old NBC miniseries, will air for a limited, four-episode run in November and then return to the schedule after the Olympics in March. News of the show’s unique rollout comes amid rampant speculation that the Warner Bros. TV drama was undergoing a serious overhaul after news broke that it would halt production for a two-week hiatus. Now, an insider confirms, the hiatus will extend for another four weeks to prepare for the show’s previously announced Nov. 3 debut. An ABC spokeswoman says it was always the network’s intent to the run the science fiction drama in “pod” form to treat it more like event programming.

The drama about an alien race that comes to earth – purportedly in peace – stars Morena Baccarin, Elizabeth Mitchell and Scott Wolf.

by Adam Wing – 24FramesperSecond.com

Director: Matsumoto Hitoshi…..Don’t you just love Japanese cinema, if you like your movies left of centre then look no further, Big Man Japan isn’t even on the same page.

Popular manzai comedian Matsumoto Hitoshi directs and stars in this bizarre mockumentary about regular guy Dai Saito, he may look like your average Joe but he’s actually a superhero.

When electrocuted, Dai Saito transforms into the gigantic, purple boxer-wearing Dai Nipponjin (Big Man Japan), doing battle against super-sized monsters like Jumpy Baddie, Baby Baddie, and of course Smelly Baddie. There’s a link there somewhere.

Saving Japan over and over again is all well and good, but Dai Saito doesn’t get much in return. His ex-wife and daughter can only bare to see him twice a year, he lives out a boring life with a stray cat in a rundown house, just waiting for the Department of Defence to call him into superhero action (the pay isn’t too hot either). All his battles are broadcast on television, but the public couldn’t care less about his exploits and his neighbours hate him. His heroics fill the late night slot on TV but the glory days of being a superhero are long gone, in fact, even the monsters stay away these days.

So it’s a cross between The Office, Hancock and Godzilla then, and even though I use the word quirky way too often, Big Man Japan could never be described as anything else. It’s also deliriously entertaining if you’re in the right frame of mind.